Shackleton’s 111-year-old beer barrel returns to Antarctica

New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust has returned a
carefully reconstructed beer barrel to the Antarctic hut
that was home to Sir Ernest Shackleton’s historic
‘Nimrod’ expedition in 1908.

Shackleton’s hut
at Cape Royds is also where the Trust found three crates of
Mackinlay’s whisky encased in ice; a discovery that
attracted global attention.

The barrel of beer was
originally donated to Shackleton by New Zealand brewer
Speight’s in 1907. Its iron hoops and staves were pulled
out of Pony Lake, alongside the Cape Royds hut, by
caretakers in the 1970s.The Trust’s Programme
Manager-Artefacts Lizzie Meek says the barrel pieces were
left near the hut and remained there, embedded in ice, for
decades.“The Trust spent four years conserving the
hut, finishing in 2008. During that project, we saw some of
the staves half buried in the ice and put a plan in place to
excavate and conserve them.

“It took some time but
we managed to get them back to New Zealand in 2016. One of
the staves has a bunghole and is engraved with the words
‘Speight’s’ and ‘Dunedin’ so we knew it was a beer
barrel from the brewery.”

Once in New Zealand, the
barrel underwent a detailed examination by the Trust’s
conservators in a laboratory at Canterbury Museum.

“The iron hoops were too badly corroded to be used to
reconstruct the barrel but many of the staves were in
suitable condition,” says Lizzie Meek.

Antarctic
Heritage Trust then connected with one of New Zealand’s
only practising coopers, Jurgen Voigtlander, and worked with
him to re-build the Speight’s barrel.

“Jurgen
established a repair strategy after a lot of research and
trial assembly. It wasn’t an easy job given that, over the
years, the original staves had lost some of their curvature
and were heavily eroded. But Jurgen painstakingly rebuilt
the barrel, using traditional techniques, the original
staves, new iron and some new wooden elements. We were
delighted with the result.”

The Trust paid for the
conservation of the barrel and it was taken back to site
with logistics support from Antarctica New Zealand.

The Cape Royds hut sits in a protected area, which means
international permits are required to remove anything from
the area and anything taken has to be returned.

Trust Executive Director Nigel Watson says it was a
poignant moment to see the barrel be returned there.

“Just as when we returned Shackleton’s whisky to the
ice, there was some celebration at the barrel’s return.
Conserving Antarctic artefacts is an incredibly meticulous
process so it’s always satisfying to see them put back
with a new lease on life that will see them survive for
generations to come,” concludes
Nigel.

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